Summary
The narrator watches Rabbu massage Begum Jaan’s smooth white skin. The narrator is fascinated by the sheen from Begum Jaan’s long legs. Begum Jaan is tall and looks stately with the “ample flesh” on her smooth body. Rabbu massages Begum Jaan’s back for hours. It is as though the massaging is more important than any other of life’s necessities.
Rabbu’s only job is to massage Begum Jaan. She perches on the couch and is at all times massaging some part of Begum Jaan’s body. The narrator can hardly bear to watch at times: if anyone were to touch her body, she says, she would “certainly rot to death.” On days Begum Jaan takes a bath, Rabbu rubs oils and pastes into Begum Jaan’s skin for two hours, massaging with such vigor that the narrator is sick imagining it. The doors of the bathing area are closed and usually only Rabbu is allowed to stay inside. Other maids hand over necessary things at the door while muttering their disapproval.
The narrator says that Begum Jaan is troubled by a persistent itch that oil and balms won’t solve. Doctors say there is nothing wrong on the unblemished surface of Begum Jaan’s skin, but there could be an infection beneath. Gazing dreamily at Begum Jaan, Rabbu says the doctors are crazy and that there’s nothing wrong with her.
The narrator says that Rabbu’s skin is as dark as Begum Jaan’s is light, and as purple as Begum Jaan is white. Rabbu seems to “glow like heated iron.” She has smallpox scars on her face, and her swollen lips are always wet. Whenever the narrator sits next to Begum Jaan, her eyes stay glued to Rabbu’s small puffy hands moving dexterously over Begum Jaan’s supple skin.
Covered in a light shawl, Begum Jaan lies on the carpet and munches dry fruits as Rabbu rubs her back. The other maids are jealous of Rabbu, who eats, sits, and even sleeps with Begum Jaan. Rabbu and Begum Jaan are the subject of gossip during the maids’ leisure hours, when they make up juicy stories about them. Begum Jaan is oblivious to the gossip and laughter because she is cut off from the outside world. Begum Jaan’s existence is centered on herself and her itch.
When the narrator’s mother goes to Agra for a week, she leaves the narrator with Begum Jaan. The narrator is very young and in love with Begum Jaan. Begum Jaan is fond of her too. The narrator sleeps in Begum Jaan’s room, in a small bed placed alongside Begum Jaan’s. They chat and play games until ten or eleven at night. Rabbu is still rubbing Begum Jaan’s back when the narrator falls asleep. The narrator thinks to herself that Rabbu is an ugly woman.
The narrator wakes in the night frightened. In the pitch darkness Begum Jaan’s quilt shakes vigorously, as though it conceals a struggling elephant. The narrator says Begum Jaan’s name and the quilt stops shaking and deflates. In a voice that seems “to come from somewhere else,” Begum Jaan tells the narrator to go back to sleep. The narrator whimpers that she is scared. Begum Jaan tells her there’s nothing to be scared of and to recite the Ayatul Kursi. The narrator recites the prayer but forgets the lines midway, even though she knows the entire Ayat by heart. She asks Begum Jaan if she can lie with her. In an abrupt tone, Begum Jaan tells the narrator no and tells her to get back to sleep.
The narrator hears two people whispering and wonders in fear who the other person is. She tells Begum Jaan she thinks a thief has entered the room. The narrator then hears Rabbu tell her to go back to sleep and that there’s no thief. The narrator draws the quilt over her face and goes to sleep. In the morning she has forgotten about the terrifying scene from the night before. She has always been superstitious, and plagued by nightmares that make people say she is possessed, so the narrator lets the incident slip from memory. The quilt looks perfectly innocent in the morning.
The following night, the narrator hears Begum Jaan and Rabbu arguing in subdued tones. She hears Rabbu crying. Then the slurping sound of a cat licking a plate. The narrator is scared and goes back to sleep. The next day Rabbu goes to a relative’s house to visit her son, an easily angered young man. Begum Jaan had bought him a shop and got him a job in the village, but nothing pleased him. While staying with Nawab Sahib, Rabbu’s son was given new clothes and gifts, but “he ran away for no good reason and never came back,” not even to see Rabbu.
Begum Jaan is reluctant to let Rabbu go but realizes Rabbu is distraught. Without Rabbu, Begum Jaan is out of sorts. Her joints ache, but she can’t bear anyone’s touch. Not eating, she mopes in bed all day. Eventually, while playing cards, the narrator asks if she should rub Begum Jaan’s back. Begum Jaan peers at her in response. The narrator asks again, and then puts the cards away and begins rubbing. Begum Jaan lies quietly. Rabbu is supposed to be back the next day, but doesn’t return. Begum Jaan grows more irritable. She drinks several cups of tea and her head aches. The narrator rubs her back again. She is happy to be of some use to Begum Jaan. Begum Jaan tells her to press harder and to open the straps on Begum Jaan’s garment.
Analysis
The narrator continues to build up Begum Jaan’s backstory, explaining how, after Rabbu came into Begum Jaan’s life, Begum Jaan kept Rabbu at her side at all times. The thought of being massaged constantly by someone disgusts the narrator, a detail that sets up her eventual intense discomfort when Begum Jaan touches her.
Continuing with her suggestiveness and propensity for euphemism, the narrator comments on the “persistent itch” troubling Begum Jaan. Although she has visited doctors, no medical professionals know what’s wrong with Begum Jaan. Only Rabbu is confident in telling Begum Jaan that there is nothing wrong with her, because Rabbu knows Begum Jaan’s “itch” is actually her suppressed sexual desire and need for release.
After establishing Begum Jaan’s character through exposition, the narrator enters the story herself. She is a girl when she meets the beautiful and regal Begum Jaan, who is forty years old. As the narrator’s mother’s adopted sister, Begum Jaan allows the narrator’s mother to leave the narrator with her when the narrator’s mother goes to the city of Agra for a week. Begum Jaan takes a liking to the narrator, and invites her to sleep in the same room.
In Begum Jaan’s bedroom on the first night of her visit, the narrator notices her adoptive aunt’s quilt shaking like it conceals a restless elephant—the image that will remain imprinted on the narrator’s mind until adulthood. The narrator does not know what to make of the elephant-like quilt and so speaks to her aunt. When she does, the quilt stops shaking and Begum Jaan insists, in a distant and frustrated tone, that nothing is wrong. The narrator, being a child with no conception of sex, is unaware that she has caught her aunt being brought to orgasm by Rabbu.
The next night, the narrator hears Rabbu and Begum Jaan having an argument. The subject is not made clear: it may be that Rabbu is uncomfortable sexually servicing Begum Jaan while a child is in the room, assuming she will be woken again; it may also be that they are arguing because Rabbu wants to visit her son and Begum Jaan is reluctant to let her leave. Whatever the argument is about it ends with Rabbu crying and then the “slurping sound of a cat licking a plate.” Just as the narrator, in her innocence, did not know what to make of the shape of the two women under the quilt together, she does not understand that the slurping sound is likely Rabbu performing cunnilingus on Begum Jaan.
Despite Begum Jaan’s protests, Rabbu leaves the house to visit her son. The narrator comments on how the son once lived with the nawab for a while, but ran away “for no good reason” and refused to ever return. Given what the narrator has established regarding the nawab’s sexual interest in young males, it is implied that the nawab may have sexually assaulted Rabbu’s son. The narrator, still largely oblivious to the atmosphere of sexual transgression and domination around her, volunteers to massage her ailing aunt when Rabbu is away. Begum Jaan passively accepts the offer, seeming at first indifferent to the child’s touch. However, Begum Jaan comes to accept the narrator as a replacement for Rabbu, directing her to touch her as Rabbu does.
